The number of healthy child clinics has been slashed by over a half, the latest timetable shows.

Medway Community Healthcare previously ran 19 hours of clinics, however from October 29 this will be cut by 9 hours.

Services will no longer be held at ABC Centre in Mercury Close, Rochester, Cuxton Library in Bush Road, Cuxton, Halling Community Centre in High Street Halling and Wayfield Children’s Centre in Wayfield Primary School, Wayfield Road, Chatham.

Parents will have 10 sessions per month where they can get their babies weighed, advice from health visitors and breastfeeding support.

Bethany Bland Spokesman for MCH said: "Medway Community Healthcare is consistently monitoring numbers of clinics and attendance at these to ensure we provide an effective and efficient service

"At some healthy child clinics, attendance has been extremely poor, with only one attendee some weeks.

"Other clinics, we know, are regularly very busy.

"We also know that these clinics have historically been used as a weighing facility.

"However for some time this has not been the primary purpose of healthy child clinics, which is why we have made arrangements with our local children’s centres for self-weighing.

"Over the past few weeks we have taken comments from the public into consideration and amended the timetable to ensure there are regular groups in Medway that meet the needs of local families within the increasingly difficult environment in which we work.

"Within Medway we are fortunate that all children have a named health visitor.

"Therefore, should parents and families have any general concerns or questions, these should be directed to their named health visitor, and our on-call health visitors also provide a same-day response to urgent queries.

"In addition, our breastfeeding lead and peer supporter lead are planning to offer everyone the availability of a peer supporter this is innovative and unique to our Medway families."